Juggling mania

As a creative entrepreneur, I have discovered one of my joys is a wide variety of things to do — and learn! My day varies from event planning, stage design, wedding decor, church consulting, and now editing a trailer for a potential TV show! How to juggle everything?
Currently I am working on the following projects:
Leadership and events:

Coaching/consulting with a church in Hawaii to develop systems, and preparing for two leadership training events there

Preparing to teach a seminar on leading change in Modesto

Overseeing event planning (children’s summer camp) with a leadership team up in Northern California in July

Doing workshop leadership track planning for a large women’s conference in Minnesota next summer

Helping to arrange production and event experience design at a convention center in Tennessee

Developing an online class for church volunteer mobilization

Stage and interior design:

Redesigning the interior of a church in Irvine

Redesigning the lobby of a church in Northern California

Designing wedding stage draping and decor for a bride and groom

Creating a commemorative art installation for a church

Graphic design:

Creating a logo for a community center in New Jersey

Designing a website for a doctor

Video:

Editing a video trailer for a potential TV show

Writing:

Writing a book about women pastors with a friend

These are just the active projects for work. There are others that are on hold or awaiting client approvals to get started. (And also personal projects, which I’m not counting!)

I’m also serving as a volunteer pastor at a church, running staff meetings, preaching, and other tasks. It’s really a joy to do ministry again! But it does make it hard for me to keep track of everything since there are so many disparate elements in my life.

It’s all a bit complicated, so I have found a lifesaver in using project management software. Here’s just a portion of it. (There are many more lines in this document!)

This is literally how I track my life. It’s also how I know how booked out I am in case new projects come along, so I can plan adequately.

The software I use is called OmniPlan. It lets you specify how long you are going to do something and link them all together. There is a cool feature called leveling, where it will spread everything out so it doesn’t overlap and you don’t overbook yourself. There are multiple similar projects out there.
I recently discovered there is a free version called Redbooth. It does something similar for projects. It’s not granular down to the minute like OmniPlan but it’s good for coordinating team projects, and I am using it for event planning. It’s free for up to 10 people, and the paid version is only $9 a month.

Using tools like this helps me keep track of many things going on… because certainly my brain cannot keep up!